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I think this is fundamentally an issue of Creator's Pest versus Ron the Death Eater. Personally I would divide up examples as follows.
- Ron the Death Eater: Goes on the source work's YMMV page, describes fandom depicting characters canonically depicted as heroic as abhorrent and/or villainous. Exhibit A: Ron to Harry/Hermione shippers.
- Creator's Pest: Describes a work creator disliking a particular character in the work. Page description specifically states it can be used for fan fiction (added in 2018
).
So, Dracoblade is flat wrong IMHO.
Trust me, I'm an engineer!But "deliberately writing badly" feels like it should very much fit under Ron the Death Eater. Unless that's a mischaracterization and the entries are more like "the author's notes say they don't like Bob in canon very much, which is why he's Put on the Bus here", I'm inclined to agree with the cuts.
I vote to keep the cuts. The other media folders only contain examples of characters created specifically for the work, so I don't think the Fan Works folder should be any different. Otherwise, the folder would soon balloon into a subpage full of examples of authors admitting to hating specific characters from canon as an excuse to bash them.
I also don't think they should be added back because the trope's opposite page, Creator's Favorite, isn't as loaded up with examples of authors loving certain characters from canon and giving them greater focus as a result.
Edited by WillyFourEyes "If struck hard enough, even the plumpest pigs can fly."I disagree. Speaking as a fan fiction writer myself, using canon characters in fanfic really isn't any different mechanically from writing them in a licensed adaptation: it's only different from a legal and financial standpoint (i.e. I don't have a license from the IP holder and I don't get paid to do it). For example, when I wrote Reality Is Fluid, I included characters from both canon Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek Online in addition to my OCs, but by definition it's my interpretation of those characters: I have to extrapolate how they would act in my scenario from how I perceive them acting in canon.
And there are characters in canon whom I despise and therefore write negatively, the Kobali for example, and I think would therefore qualify as examples of Creator's Pest (the rule against Auto-Erotic Troping notwithstanding).
Edited by StarSword Trust me, I'm an engineer!I agree Creator's Pest shouldn't be fanworks vilifying/bashing characters they don't like, but I also agree that such is no different then when licensed works, who's characters are inherited rather than made by whom they're Pest to, do the same which is seemingly allowed.
My proposed fix is that CP is not characters they dislike such they enjoy bashing them, but dislike working with them such rather than bash they would just not include them given the choice, or at least try to marginalize. But does that make it too similar to Creator Backlash? Thoughts?
Edited by Ferot_DreadnaughtCreator Backlash is supposed to be when a creator dislikes a past work they made rather than a particular character in it (e.g. Disney refusing to make Song of the South available again), so that's not an issue.
Furthermore Creator's Pest doesn't actually require a creator to actively try to paint a character negatively, it just often results in that: Yomu Mishima created Marie Fou Lafan out of dislike of "little sister" characters in visual and light novels, but she actually takes a Heel–Face Turn and becomes the deuteragonist of the series starting in volume 4.
Edited by StarSword Trust me, I'm an engineer!Again, that's why I think these examples are actually Ron the Death Eater - Creator's Pest just means the author says they dislike them; it's RTDE when they actually deliberately go out of their way to portray them in a negative light.
So... Ron the Death Eater actually doesn't apply since the semi-recent TRS made it about fandom trends and not specific fanfic examples (yes, there's a lot of misuse to clean up; no, that doesn't change anything).
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall^^They're not RTDE as that is general fandom trends of such, not specific works/creators doing such (possibly to characters who aren't off enough vilified to fit RTDE) which is Adaptational Personality Change. The CP examples being debated describe their motivations for the change.
There is a possible mechanical difference between fan and official works in this case. Official works have Creativity Leashes that limit them from just removing/not including/fixing characters they don't like, fanworks don't usually (collaborations being the exception) have those restrictions. Thus I see official works bashing characters they can't just remove as valid but fanworks doing it as misuse as nothing's stopping them from removing/fixing them save they DO like the character to bash/like their vilified version of the character.
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught^x3 ^x2 I know this is slightly off-topic, but what does everyone think should be done about story-specific cases of character bashing that don't follow general fandom trends that RTDE is supposed to be about? My first instinct would have been to stick those under Character Derailment, but that should only apply to when characters start consistently acting out of character within the story rather than what another author does with them (and there's plenty of misuse on CharacterDerailment.Fan Works that needs to be trimmed down).
"If struck hard enough, even the plumpest pigs can fly."^TBH, while it's probably a subject for another thread entirely, this is exactly why I was incredibly dismayed to hear about that TRS result. They picked the objectively worse of the two potential definitions that had been previously mashed into Ron the Death Eater - "general fandom trends" are far less tropable than the examples about individual works that are now left in limbo.
Most of them just go under Adaptational Villainy.
But yeah this is off topic.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall

Back in Dec 2021, Dracoblade deleted these Creator's Pest examples (in folder due to sheer number/leangth) citing "The trope is creators not liking a character they wrote, not fan fic writers deliberately writing a character badly because they didn't like them. That's a different trope. Likewise, rewriting a scene or season like how it should have gone goes under Fix Fic, not here."
The issue is there are many non-fanwork examples of writers inheriting characters from the series they didn't care for and bashing them. I asked here
and here
but got no consensus or feedback on what to do. Several of the Creators Pest entries or similar are still under the fanworks Trivia pages.
I intend to add back the entries (save those just about not liking characters in the original as opposed to how it effect how the fics author writes them) as, while I agree this should be something more than authors bashing character they don't like, I see nothing suggesting it's misuse as it's currently defined and have heard nothing on it being misuse despite repeatedly asking. (If it should be changed is for a cleanup.) Any objections to adding back or should the Trivia page examples be cut as well?